JUNE IN FRANCONIA. ae 
(the diapensia was in full flower, with its 
upright snowy goblets, while the geum and 
the Greenland sandwort were just beginning 
to blossom), the magnificent prospect, the 
stimulating air, and, most of all, the moun- 
tain itself. I sympathized then, as I have 
often done at other times, with a remark 
once made to me by a Vermont farmer’s 
wife. I had sought a night’s lodging at her 
house, and during the evening we fell into 
conversation about Mount Mansfield, from 
the top of which I had just come, and di- 
rectly at the base of which the farmhouse 
stood. When she went up “the mounting,” 
she said, she liked to look off, of course; but 
somehow what she cared most about was 
“the mounting itself.” 
The woman had probably never read a 
line of Wordsworth, unless, possibly, ““ We 
are Seven’? was in the old school reader; 
but I am sure the poet would have liked this 
saying, especially as coming from such a 
source. J liked it, at any rate, and am 
seldom on ‘a mountain-top without recalling 
it. Her lot had been narrow and prosaic, 
—hitterly so, the visitor was likely to think ; 
she was little used to expressing herself, and 
